If the biological father has 5 counts of physical abuse against the boy, then why has your wife not done everything within her power to obtain sole physical and legal custody? This would be a slam-dunk in most jurisdictions as long as the mother has no history of neglect or abuse of the boy. That is a curious question. Secondly, he needs the very best psychiatric treatment available - probably inpatient residential treatment. If he is a danger to himself or others, that is the legal requirement for involuntary psychiatric holds at most hospitals wherein further extensive evaluation can be conducted. Your stepson's behavior is very extreme, dangerous, and sociopathic. You need to get a good family law attorney, sue for sole custody, and then get some serious psychiatric treatment.
"Suing for sole custody will give the biological mother power to seek and follow-thru with treatment (residential treatment that requires the child to be out of the home). In addition, it is neglectful, at the very least, to allow one of your children to remain in the custody of someone who has repeatedly abused your child"
So when you have done all the right things, go to court, spend thousands of dollars in legal fees and all they do is make excuses for the systems mistakes and sorry, "your case kind of fell through the cracks." What else do you do? Kidnap? Then my wife and I are breaking the law and no, we have no criminal history, police record, or are doped up on drugs, craks, or any other chemical substance.
This simple fact of the matter is if you have connections with the government, and the money, and know the right people in the right places, you can get away with it, no matter how bad you are.
We have spent thousands of dollars in court and legal fees battling for custody for six years, in the end there was nothing to proove because the courts never followed up, the schools never reported the abuse in a timely manner as required by law, and when the father did not show up for court ordered parental training, he never went and the courts never did a thing, and yes my wife and I banged gongs, raised hell but to no avail. The system is broken. Did I mention he is a convicted felon too. Believe it or not it does not matter is this state, if out of anything.
All suspicious deaths are investigated, as required by law. Any facility that houses/treats minors is under the state's jurisdiction. When you try to assess the risk, one needs to consider the risk of failing to treat: risk of the child harming others, engaging in criminal behavior that results in destruction or theft of property, getting involved with drugs and gangs, and much more. Perhaps the biggest mistake that is made is the failure to exact swift and immediate consequences to young, budding sociopaths. Good military-like residential treatment facilities are designed to do just this. Good treatment programs emphase teaching these young males respect and deference to authority. And sometimes, when such treatment fails, imprisonment for criminal behavior is best to keep society safe.
I've looked into militay-like camps. It's frightening when you look at the number of deaths involved at these places. How do you know if it's safe?
I agree that finding appropriate psychiatric help is difficult - but not impossible. The state that I live in has a "Boys Ranch" that accepts boys with sociopathic behavior - there is a waiting list, but in the interim families have access to services thru juvenile services that provide intensive services for those that qualify. I always counsel parents that getting access to such services is much easier if done through juvenile court. This means that when the child aggresses against someone or commits any criminal act - charges must be brought against the child immediately. The parent or other must contact the police and follow thru with pressing charges. This is important from a treatment aspect as well. Look for residential programs that focus on intensive structure, discipline, and military-like environment. Look out of state. Contact the closest major university, social services, and juvenile services and start your search there. You may need to talk to many people before you find what you need.
Suing for sole custody will give the biological mother power to seek and follow-thru with treatment (residential treatment that requires the child to be out of the home). In addition, it is neglectful, at the very least, to allow one of your children to remain in the custody of someone who has repeatedly abused your child.
Nothing that I've said is impossible, just very difficult.
Accurate psychiatric diagnosis requires truthful input from parents, teachers, others, and a paper trail from juvenile court is very helpful.
suing for sole custody of a sociopathic juvenile will put everyone's lives at risk. The marrige will suffer, the children will suffer and possibly be put in harms way. Until he is diagnosed with a personality disorder, how can he be instituitionalized? They're treating him for ADHD and depression. How much further can they be off??
What psychiatric treatment is there? All the info I'm getting is there is nothing that can be done. We're looking for help in the mental health community in how we, as the family members, can now step back and stop expecting a normal life for our nephew and at least stop fighting with him to be "normal". When you start researching this behavior, and I think my nephew is sociopathic (we're using the word conduct disorder because of the stigma attached) there isn't any help out there, mostly because most sociopaths don't want and don't think they need help. They think it's everyone else thats crazy. I'm hoping there are psychiatrists that can at least help consul juveniles until they reach age 18, when the parents still have some influence. I'm hoping we can learn how to deal with him in a positive attitude, less expectations, and realize that he was probably born with this disorder. We dont have any abuse/chem dependancy, alcohal abuse, divorce etc in our family and since my nephew since early childhood has not even been able to have a babysitter watch him, there is not much chance he was abused when we were not present.
What psyschiatic help is out there?
Also, on the website focusas.com under Behavior Problems look at the book: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision of the American Psychiatric Association Association, I'm not sure if this is for the layperson or not, but you'll get to know the abreviations DSM-IV-TR
I just printed out Dr. Hares brochure, again it's the website http:www.mhs.com/conners/CBRS/Conners_CBRS_Brochure.pdf
from Dr. Hares webite
Hi Mike, Sorry to hear what is going on. I am also looking for help my nephew. Here is a website I just found that might help you. I am getting ready to purchase this book called Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version
Available from Multi-Health Systems
From Dr Robert Hare who seems to be the best specialist. He lives in BC and his website is Hare.org
http://www.mhs.com/conners/CBRS/Conners_CBRS_Brochure.pdf
Seems like the best thing to do is take matters into your own hands. My nephew has been diagnosed with several things, we recently took him off all his medications and we saw no difference in his behavior. .You might want to investigate focusas.com and look at oppositional defiance disorder. conduct disorder, anti-social personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder and how to deal with firestarting.
They won't diagnosis sociopathic or psychopathic behavior until age 18 (haven't been able to find out why) but you might want to look up info on that as well. Again I'm looking to purchase Dr. Hare's book.
I'm on this same website under "sociopathic 13 year old". Go to the Browse, Social Development section. Someone was helping me with info you might find helpful.
Good luck, I'm sorry your going thru this, I'm sorry I'm going thru this.